EOL Chapter 46

“Father!”

Joshua shouted and stumbled and lunged forward through the turbulent airship.

Xiu was completely unaffected by him. He gripped the hilt of the knife tightly and pulled it out from the high priest’s throat, and blood splattered all over Xiu’s body.

The high priest made a terrifying gurgling sound as he clutched his bleeding wound, struggling to say something… perhaps an instruction to Joshua, perhaps a curse at Xiu. He may have said something, or he may not have said anything; either way, no one heard him amid the cacophony of alarms and explosions.

He possessed extremely high academic achievements and a prestigious title second only to the emperor, yet he held no real power. How could he be content with that? He devoted his entire life to achieving the great vision that even the ancestors of the Bai clan had failed to realize: to rise to a higher level and surpass the Golden Palace.

To carry out this grand plan, he needed to create a suitable successor to seize the position of the Golden Palace. To achieve this, he won over a wife with enhanced physical abilities, subdued her, and modified her constitution. Unfortunately, his efforts were in vain; although the child was no longer weak, he had a genetic defect due to the modifications his mother underwent before conception.

Fortunately, the genetic defect actually made the empress more at ease and made it easier for her to control the child. 

The high priest never imagined that he would die in this place at the hands of this failed experiment he had created.

In just a few seconds, his eyes widened, and he lost all life.

“Wait, don’t do it!”

As Xiu quickly turned to him, Joshua shouted.

He wasn’t stupid, and by now he had realized that the sudden abnormality of the spaceship and Xiu’s series of unusual actions must be related. Xiu was the mole that the High Priest had been trying to find!

The high priest was beyond saving. In this life-or-death situation, he remained calm, knowing that if he couldn’t save his life, nothing else mattered.

Joshua held a chair in front of his chest as a shield. Although Xiu had a knife in his hand, the knife was much shorter than the chair leg, making it difficult for him to get close for the time being.

The two remained locked in a tense standoff amidst the violent shaking and noise. Joshua shouted, “Even if Father has wronged you, I’ve never harmed you! Brother, put down the knife; let’s talk…”

“Shut up!” Xiu interrupted him abruptly. “Who do you think you are, to call me brother?”

Joshua’s face contorted in anger as he shouted, “Then what are you, a patricide?!”

Before he could finish his rant, Xiu suddenly charged forward, and Joshua frantically raised a chair with both hands to defend himself and retaliate.

The noblemen had all learned some fighting skills, but the spaceship was shaking so violently that neither of them could make a move or maintain their stance. The two adult men grappled with their weapons, and soon the furnishings in the room were all destroyed, and even the high priest’s corpse was trampled on several times.

During the fight, Joshua’s exposed hand, which was gripping the chair, was slashed by Xiu. He cried out in pain but dared not let go of the chair.

“Getting stabbed by a kitchen knife must hurt a lot!” Xiu said breathlessly. “My brother was in even more pain than you were, you know?!”

“Are you crazy?! It wasn’t me who stabbed the prince!” Joshua shouted, enduring the pain. “Didn’t he stage the whole thing?!”

“You’re all the ones who ruined him!”

Xiu roared in extreme rage. Half of his body was covered in blood, some from the high priest, some from Joshua. The sensory stimulation of blood and explosions had driven him to a bloodthirsty rage, nearly driving him to madness. Joshua had known Xiu for over twenty years and had never seen the noble and composed crown prince in such a disoriented state.

It was as if… a lifetime of suppressed anger finally erupted without restraint.

“It’s all because you wanted to harm him… If he hadn’t had any other choice, would he have hurt himself like that?! He’s still a child!”¹yeah yeah lmao

“Is he still a child at twenty-two?!”

Joshua shouted angrily, but Xiu wouldn’t listen. Joshua stumbled and dodged the attacks while holding a chair, his heart bleeding with hatred.

Another deafening explosion rang out, causing the entire spaceship to tremble violently. Both of them nearly fell over. Xiu staggered a step, frowning as he clutched his abdomen.

He had been feeling unwell lately, and after the intense fighting and violent tremors, he felt even more dizzy, nauseous, and had abdominal discomfort. At this moment, he could barely stand.

Just as he was affected by his body, Joshua seized the opportunity and suddenly swung the chair at Xiu’s hand holding the knife. Xiu couldn’t dodge in time, and the knife was knocked away.

“Go to hell!”

Joshua shouted, raising the metal chair high and aiming its sharp horns at Xiu’s head, about to bring it down with force.

Amidst the explosion, neither of the two fighters noticed that the door behind Joshua flew open with a “bang,” allowing those outside to immediately see what was happening inside.

Just when the battle was about to be decided, a beam of light shot through the room and pierced Joshua’s outstretched arm with pinpoint accuracy, flying past Xiu’s head with droplets of blood.

The light arrow pierced his arm, causing an unbearable burning pain. Joshua cried out in pain, clutching his arm and falling to the ground. The chair lost its balance and fell to the side.

After Joshua fell, the person standing at the door came into Xiu’s view; that person was still in the posture of shooting an arrow. The giant bow formed from light in his hand vanished, and the newcomer lowered his hands, revealing golden hair and burning golden eyes.

Across a room filled with shattered furniture, blood, a corpse, and a person groaning in pain, Alfred and Xiu stared at each other amidst the deafening alarm, both looking at each other with surprise and anger.

“This spaceship is going to crash!” Alfred strode over the obstacles on the ground and walked towards Xiu, speaking loudly enough to drown out the alarm, “Come with me!”

“You…” Xiu was so angry he was practically dizzy. He had arranged everything, and when he was finally about to calmly face his death, he discovered that the person he had painstakingly pushed away had voluntarily run into a deadly trap.

“Why didn’t you just watch it crash?! What are you doing here?!”

“I’ve come to find you,” Alfred said briefly. “Let’s go.”

With Alfred there, Xiu didn’t dare waste any more time and immediately followed him to leave, when a bloody hand grabbed his trouser leg.

“Save me! Take me with you, please!”

Xiu tried to break free, but Joshua clung tightly to his last chance to live, unwilling to let go easily.

“Brother! I know a lot about that old man; don’t leave me here! I’m your own brother!”

He should have kept quiet, because these words ignited Alfred’s murderous intent. However, before he could make a move, Xiu had already picked up the kitchen knife that had fallen to his feet, and with a swift and decisive stroke, sent him to meet his father.

“Let’s go.” Xiu kicked Joshua’s hand away, grabbed Alfred’s hand, and walked forward.

Alfred didn’t leave. Instead, he grabbed Xiu, wiped the blood splattered on his face, and then grabbed Xiu’s hair, forcing him to tilt his head back to kiss him.

“Hmm…”

Xiu forcefully broke free from the brief, deep kiss, so angry he wanted to hit the person in front of him.

“What time is it? You…”

“Now you’re in a hurry? Before I came, you didn’t seem to be in a hurry to escape, and you even had time to kill people.” Alfred said, his eyes still burning with anger. “Given how cowardly your own brother is, I don’t think he was dragging you into this fight.”

Xiu took a deep breath and said, “Let’s leave first. How did you get here?”

“I destroyed the boarding gate here.”

“That’s this way, follow me…”

“Don’t rush,” Alfred said. “Have you been the one helping me all along?”

Xiu said angrily, “Let’s not talk about this now! Let’s go.”

Alfred said, “Go ahead and leave. There are escape pods on the other ship. The person I love has been trying to harm me, and the Emperor wants to kill me too. Let me die here.”

Xiu asked in surprise, “Why would His Majesty want to kill you?”

“Don’t ask. Since I’m going to die anyway, I might as well die for my country and at least have a good reputation after my death.”

Xiu was so angry that he couldn’t speak. His stomach churned, and he frowned, clutching his belly. He used his hands to support himself against the wall to stand up.

“Brother! What’s wrong?” Alfred quickly helped him up, wanting to check on him. “Were you hurt just now?”

Xiu pushed him away, steadied himself, and said coldly, “If you want to ascend the throne, you have two major problems. First, you lack the ambition to seize the throne, and second, you don’t have enough prestige.”

Alfred was stunned. Xiu pointed his finger at his nose, his fingertips trembling with anger.

“All my efforts in this life were just to pave the way for you! I didn’t dare tell you until the very end, for fear that you would have reservations when you attacked this spaceship! Now you actually want to give up your own life! You have disappointed me so much, I…”

As he spoke, his eyes filled with tears. When Alfred saw this, he couldn’t hold back anymore and rushed forward to hug him tightly, enveloping his cold fingertips in his warm hands.

“Don’t be angry, don’t be angry. The main power system hasn’t been destroyed yet, so it won’t crash for the time being. I didn’t want to die. Brother, don’t be angry, don’t cry. We won’t die. Why would I take you with me to die?”

Xiu was taken aback, blinked, and managed to hold back his tears, but his anger seemed to be burning even brighter.

Seeing that things were going badly, Alfred reached out and squeezed the air hard.

A loud explosion rang out. Alfred bent down, scooped Xiu up in his arms, and shouted, “This time it’s really going to crash! Brother, wait for a bit before you start scolding me!”

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  yeah yeah lmao